Sailor Talk & Sunshine Hair
by BIFF1
Summary: She shrugs trying to think back on the first time she had thought of Dick as a viable romantic partner. She finds it funny that it's when he had called her eight times at the grocery store to make sure he picked up the right type of milk. He had been shocked that there were so many kinds of alternatives. An Exploration of Mac and Dick's relationship.


**Sailor talk & Sunshine hair**

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A/P: Written for VMFicRecs May prompt. It started with option 4e who cusses more and then just kind of ended up being the full prompt. Hope you enjoy

* * *

She had been living with him for a while and he was still shocked by the stream of colorful language that would burst out from the home office.

Violent vulgar words about mothers and what she would do to people's orifices.

His last roommate had been an honest to God _sailor_ and he had never sworn like Mac did.

He walked past the door, sealed tight, and he jumped as she screamed about cum dumpsters and mother fuckers.

He liked it.

He'd never tell her, or anyone else for that matter, but Mac yelling vulgar, terrible things at her computer screen got him kind of hot.

 _Kind of really hot._

Dick leaned against the wall opposite of the office door, listening to the steady stream of click clacking and waited for something else to go wrong.

When it did it must have gone wrong in a big way because he could have heard her from three counties away. Logan could have heard her from his aircraft carrier.

There was another sound, accompanying the cursing though, the sound of something smashing, and against his better judgment he pushed away from the wall and opened the office door.

She's standing in the middle of the disaster zone she had made, her monitor was on the ground, pieces of hardware scattered across the floor and she stood with her eyes burning, her face red and her hand cut open.

"Jesus Christ, Mac, are you okay?" He snatches her hand and turns it so he can see what she's done.

"I'm fine Dick, but if I catch that _fuckass_ _thundercunt_ _son_ _of_ _a_ _bitch_ I'm going to shove their head so far up -" he's not sure what his face must look like, but he's taking every possible inch of her in, his fingers on her ripped skin, heart thumping hard in his chest, he wants to devour her words, harsh and sharp and _hard_ , "Dick?" She pauses in her threat, "what the fuc-"

He kisses her and he knows immediately that he shouldn't have, she was just his roommate, guilted upon him by a Logan-Ronnie double team, but _God_ he wants her to fill him up with her words because her voice isn't the only thing hard.

She struggles and he pulls away.

"What the shit Dick?!" She pulls her hand out of his grip and storms out of the room. He can hear her softly swearing under her breath as he follows her to the first aid kit in the bathroom.

He should apologize.

The second her hand is cleaned and taped up though she starts yelling at him. Angry, hard, disgusting word combinations that he would have thought would make her blush but he's the one whose face is red and when her eyes flash down he knows they all know just how much he likes it when she swears.

She pushes him, and he lets her, he keeps opening his mouth and apologizing but her words overlap his until she shoves him once more and he falls back onto her bed.

 _She pushed him here?_

"What the _fuck_ did you think was going to happen, Dick?" She pushes again and climbs into his lap.

"Holy fuck..."

She shakes her head and puts her hand to his mouth, "I don't like it when you swear." He nods and she smiles in a way that completely undoes all the angry words and rough pushes.

She likes this.

Okay.

Yeah, okay, he can get behind that.

The smile is soft and private. It just fucking melts him and when she pulls her shirt off, and tosses it carefully into the hamper, he knows that he's done for because she looks perfect.

"Mac-"

"Shut. The. Fuck. Up. Richard." She growls, her finger nails scraping his skin and sinking into the leather of his belt.

"Yes ma'am."

* * *

She's never really been the rough, in charge type but lording power over Dick had been thrilling.

The room is heavy with the scent of what they've done and she should really go back to the office, home or otherwise, to finish what she was doing.

She sits up, looking down at the mess she's made of her roommate. Dick is a mass of soft bare skin and sunshine hair, the red marks of her nails crisscross him.

He's barely awake. She had done everything in her power to work out her angry frustration and she'll gladly admit that Dick is much more enjoyable than wrecking her equipment.

She leans away to slip out of bed, but Dick wraps a bruising arm around her waist and pulls her back down into the bed.

 _Dick is a cuddler? Since when?_ The months they've been living together she has seen a fair few 'ladies' walk out of Dick's bedroom grumbling over the cold shoulder.

He nuzzles her, his breath hot against her neck, his hair soft against her cheek, he's murmuring soft, sweet words into her and it slows her heartbeat, drains the leftover rage in her blood.

Dick pulls her close easily, even in his half conscious state he's able to move her like she weighed nothing.

He pulls up a sheet around them and she swears to God he tucks them in.

"I didn't know you were a cuddler."

"Mmm, you feel good." He rubs her side and the strange thing is that it doesn't seem all that sexual, "Smell good, too."

"I smell like sex and," she raises her wrist to smell herself, "sweat and hot wires."

"Yeah, that's what that is." He just agrees happily and wiggles his arm under the pillow and her head until she is pretty much surrounded by this cuddle monster.

"Do I always smell like hot wires?" She can't help but ask as he nuzzles her again.

"I try not to make a habit out of smelling my roommate, but yeah..."

"Why didn't you say something?"

"I like the way you smell."

She wants to get back to work, but as her fingers trace the angry lines she's made on his skin she concedes. The least she could do after he let her abuse him so much was allow for a few minutes of cuddling afterward.

It's more than a couple of minutes, it's hours and she's positive if she hadn't told him how desperately she needed to pee they would still be cuddling.

"How can you do that for so long?" She asks over breakfast, he made her a very green smoothie and she's not sure if she trusts him enough that he didn't cheat and put dairy in it or not.

Dick leans against the counter takes a deep drink of the smoothie and promptly spits it out in the sink. She decides that it must be vegan then and tries her own.

It tastes an awful lot like grass clippings.

"I've built up a lot of stamina from surfing." He tells her with a smug looking grin.

"Stamina?" It takes her a moment to realize they aren't talking about the same thing, "I meant the cuddling smartass."

"Oh," the smug look disintegrates and he's left standing by the sink, staring at his shoes looking adorably embarrassed, "sorry." He rubs the back of his neck, a Casablancas trait she's only too familiar with but her blood instantly cools for a different reason, his arm is bruised and scratched and she knows it's because of her.

"Dick..." She moves through the kitchen to run her fingers softly over his battered skin, "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, just next time maybe we should have a safe word."

She looks up at him quickly, "Next time?"

"Oh um, we don't-" he flounders and she can't help but laugh at him.

"Its fine." She smiles and the smile he gives back is relieved, "but if you want to cuddle after, I'm going to need like a crossword or a novel or something." She jokes, but the next time they have sex Dick pulls a tablet out of his bedside table and hands it to her when they are done. He's loaded up the book she's reading for her book club and three different crossword apps.

* * *

She rushes into the emergency room, face red, eyes wide, shirt buttoned wrong and two different socks on.

"You called Mac?" He turns to Sean whose sitting beside him totally unharmed, _you're_ _welcome_. He had been thrown haphazardly into a fight on Sean's behalf and he had the gall to call Mac on him?

 _Some friend._

He shrugs, "I have an early morning shoot." He tells him before clapping him on the shoulder and waving Mac over, "Why don't you want your girlfriend here with you instead of me?" Sean looks at him with narrow, concerned eyes as Mac weaves through the seats of the waiting room.

"She isn't my girlfriend." He grumbles, she had made it pretty clear just earlier that week. Her parents had been over and he had been repeatedly introduced as Dick, _the_ _roommate_. He had been refusing her advances ever since.

"Looks like she is." He turns to Mac as she finally stands in front of them, "Ghostworld." He nods.

"Dumbass." She returns and she looks over them both, her eyes turn laser sharp and angry when she looks back at Sean, "Why is he the only one that's hurt? I thought you said you'd both been in the fight?"

Sean shrugs and Dick can't look away from how angry Mac suddenly is.

"I can't help it if I'm better in a fight than him." Sean tries to play it off as a joke, but Mac is having none of it.

From his seat, he watches Mac's hand move like lightening until she has Sean's ear between her fingers and is pulling and twisting.

Sean's whines of pain are attracting security, "What. Happened?" She's making that angry sound that gets him hot, her voice ice cold and rock hard. Sean doesn't seem to have as pleasant a reaction to it.

"Okay, okay Dick fought for me." She let's go of his ear and Sean stands in front of him, an unhappy look twisting his face as he rubs his ear, " _Jesus_ , you're taking this pretty seriously for not being his girlfriend." He turns to Dick, "I'll call you later." He doesn't say goodbye to Mac just brushes past her and out of the emergency room.

Mac sits next to him in the spot Sean used to occupy. She doesn't say anything but she brushes his hair back and looks at him for so long he's sure she wants to say something.

He's called in before she can manage any syllables. He waits for her to follow him but she doesn't move so he goes without her.

When he turns to look at her, she has her head in her hands. She's probably wondering how she got mixed up with him. _Hadn't she learned her lesson the first time around with his brother?_ The Casablancas family was nothing but trouble.

A couple of stitches in his arm later, he's out and standing in front of Mac.

"We can go now." He mutters and nodding she gets up and leads him out into the parking lot. She's taking up two spots with her terrible, rushed parking job and looking across at her she looks like a mess.

"What did Sean tell you anyway?"

"He just said you two had been in a fight and were at the hospital emergency room." She unlocks the doors and gets in.

He doesn't bother saying anything the entire ride home. She's silent until she parks in the garage.

"What did Sean mean about me not being your girlfriend?"

"Well you're not. Right? I'm just your _roommate_. That's what you told your parents anyway." He makes to open the door but she locks it.

"Are you upset?"

"What? No. Of course I'm not upset. Why would I be upset? Its not like I expected you to tell them I was your boyfriend or anything."

He totally did.

"You did, didn't you..." Mac puts her hands to her mouth smothering a smile and maybe some laughter.

He manually unlocks his door and walks away from her.

She follows him this time. Where was she when he _wanted_ her to follow him?

"Dick. Do you think we're dating?"

He stops short of his bedroom and sighs, "Why not, why wouldn't I think we're dating? I don't have sex with anyone but you: I care about your feelings and shit."

"But we've never been on a date... Sitting at home in the dark re-watching X-files from the start doesn't really count, Dick."

"Well it should, I like doing that with you."

"I like it, too."

"It's my favorite part of the day..." He grumbles, he can't look at her but the floor at her feet he notices is dusty.

"It's my favorite part of the day, too." Her voice is velvet soft and when she moves it's slow like molasses. She takes his hand carefully and leads him back downstairs.

She sets him on the couch and sitting next to him curled up, allowing for more cuddling than usual, she starts the next episode of X-Files.

It's dark and the blue light of the TV is thrown across the room, reflecting off the windows.

"So..." He tries but she puts her hand blindly to his face, moving until she covers his mouth.

"Shush." She doesn't turn away from the TV and he takes the hint. All talking is for later.

They don't talk after either, not really, she follows him into his bedroom and he's nervous because he's bruised and cut but she's smiling at him, that soft gentle thing and it melts him just like the first time, just like every time.

She isn't tough with him, no sharp burst of swearing, and the only nails in his skin are once when she loses control and digs into his shoulders.

She doesn't whine or fidget once they are finished and his arms wrap around her, she sinks into his embrace and it's not introducing him as her boyfriend or anything but he's fairly certain that's what this means.

* * *

She tells Veronica in an email from the other room.

 _I'm_ _dating_ _Dick._ _Thoughts?_

"Don't? Is that still on the table?" Veronica's voice comes from the other room, muffled and confused.

When she looks up from her computer she can see why her best friend is muffled, she's shoving chow mein into her face, leaning against the doorframe watching, her eyebrow raised.

She's waiting for more details, but she can see by the way Veronica's face twists and she stops eating that maybe she didn't want details after all.

"Please stop making that face, it's not that bad." Mac shrinks, trying to remember why the hell she even told Veronica in the first place instead of just letting the relationship be unspoken until it ultimately fell apart and she needed to move back in with her parents.

"Why?"

She shrugs trying to think back on the first time she had thought of Dick as a viable romantic partner. She finds it funny that it's when he had called her eight times at the grocery store to make sure he picked up the right type of milk. He had been shocked that there were so many kinds of alternatives.

They sat on the floor of the living room in the dark that night and ate cookies and milk and talked about zombie contingency plans.

His was better than hers, so it was also her plan now.

"I'm not sure what to say, I like being with him."

"This is _Dick_ _Casablancas_..." Veronica stumbles trying to find the exact anecdote to deter her friend from Dick.

" It's not like I've forgotten who he is, Veronica. I know what he's done, and who he's done it to. I know that he doesn't care about Fellini or fractals. It just. It doesn't matter."

Veronica makes a noise in the back of her throat before she goes back into her office.

Veronica cc's her on an email to Wallace, Logan and Eli. It's a pool on when her relationship with Dick will implode.

"Thanks a lot Veronica, you're a great friend."

"Hey, I gave you good odds."

"You said we'll break up by new years!"

" Yeah, but that's months away."

She can practically hear the smile in her friend's tone and knows that this is a surprisingly good reaction considering they had spent years vilifying Dick.

When she gets home, the kitchen is a mess, there is some sort of red sauce on the stove, the sink is piled high with dishes and the smell of something burnt hangs in the air.

Oh _G_ _od,_ Dick tried to cook.

She hisses unhappily and rolls up her sleeves. She knows, no matter what she says, Dick won't wash the dishes. She had caught him replacing dirty dishes with new ones before.

"Mac! Are you home!" He yells from outside and she sighs turning off the hot water.

" No, some burglar has broken in to clean the kitchen." She grinds her back teeth.

He _knows_ she hates this. She swears he does it to make her mad.

"Oh sweet!" Dick's voice overlaps the creak of the patio screen door, "I hope they're wearing one of those black bodysuits like Catwoman." His tone is light and happy and it's grating on her.

She had spent the better part of her day justifying her relationship with Dick, first to Veronica and then Wallace and now silently to herself.

Dick puts his arms on either side of the sink, trapping her against the counter and normally it would be pretty hot, but her blood is boiling with a different kind of heat.

"You weren't going to clean these were you?" She grumbles and the anger is so clear in her voice that Dick pulls back.

"Not today no..." She wipes her wet hands on a cloth and turns to look at Dick.

"Not today, so tomorrow?"

He shrugs but looks generally alarmed that they are having this fight, like he didn't think he'd done anything wrong.

Which she finds ridiculous, they have had this exact fight before.

"What the hell's the problem if I do it tomorrow instead of right now? It'll still get done."

"But that's the problem, it won't get done."

" It's always gotten done before."

"Because _I_ do it."

"No one asked you to."

They go on like that for what feels like hours until, as per usual, Dick just walks away. He just walks away from the fight and if anything that makes her even angrier.

She follows him intending to pin him down to finish this fight once and for all.

He goes outside and it's then that she notices the flickering golden light.

She steps out onto the patio and cringes.

Dick has indeed made dinner, he set up a bistro set with wine and candles and something covered in red sauce.

The candles are melted unhappily as if they just seem to know that they were wasted and not enjoyed.

Dick is sitting with his back to the house looking out at the ocean and she feels terrible.

She sits down at the table and doesn't make eye contact. She takes her glass of wine, drinks deeply from it and stabs a bit of squarish something with her fork.

It's terrible.

It's ice cold, which is her fault, but she's pretty sure it was never going to win any awards.

It's tofu something or other.

He takes a bite as well and instantly spits it out.

" It's delicious." She tells him and tries incredibly hard to mask her disgust as she cleans her plate.

"Mac, please don't eat it." He reaches to take it away from her, but she slaps his hands away.

She makes herself sick and Dick sits on the floor beside her apologizing for his terrible cooking and promising to always clean up after himself.

She wants to kiss him but, _vomit_. So they hold hands instead and it's almost as good.

And he does clean up after himself for the rest of the week, but not for a moment longer.

* * *

He's with Logan when he gets the call.

He drops his cell phone, his heartbeat a fucking jazz drum solo, too fast and all over the place.

"What is it? What happened?" Logan grabs the phone from the floor and puts it to his ear, "Bobcat? What happened?"

He can't move.

He closes his eyes tightly and tries to make it go away, but he can't with Logan in the room talking to Veronica, getting details on hospitals and the _accident_.

If that had been an accident he'd eat his surfboard.

He knows exactly why the brakes on Mac's car hadn't worked.

It was the fucking Gutierrez case Mac was helping Ronnie put together.

Dick walks to the kitchen, pulls out a shot glass and skims across colored bottles until he finds the one that is going to have the right numbing effect.

He's thrown back three shots of something dark by the time Logan is standing across from him with his keys in his hand.

"Dick...why are you drinking?"

Dick doesn't say anything just pushes past him on the way to the den, his fingers fly through the combination on his gun safe and he's loading his handgun before Logan even gets to the doorway.

"Dick..." His voice is slow, it's that _don't_ _do_ _something_ _stupid_ tone he used to use all the time in college, "what are you doing?"

"I'm going to go kill that son of a bitch." He growls feeling the weight of the gun in his hand and the blood speeding through his body.

"What! Dick who are you-"

"Eddy! You think for a second I don't know _exactly_ who had her brakes cut?" He feels a push to action inside him; he had been motionless, unable to help his brother, he would _not_ let his girlfriend get hurt because of his inability to act.

So act he was going to do.

He tries to get past Logan but he's baring the door.

"Logan, get out of the way."

"No way, Dick, you're not thinking straight. Just put the gun away and we'll go to the hospital to see Mac."

"No- get out of the-" he means to force his way through but Logan's training must kick in because the next moment he's on the floor, his arm in one of Logan's arms, his gun in the other.

The clip drops to the floor next to him, but there's still some fight left in him and Logan isn't treating this like a street fight but one minute he has his hands on the clip and the gun and the next he's screaming in pain, his hand at an odd angle and Logan's knee in his back.

His wrist is sprained and in one of those strappy protector things when he walks into the room where Mac, Veronica and Fennel are waiting.

Mac is sitting on the edge of the bed looking annoyed and paler than usual.

"What happened to you?" She asks reaching out for him.

"Logan and I got into a bit of a... scuffle." He tries to blow it off and instead makes her tell him what day it is and who's the president and when she can come home.

* * *

They've lasted till Christmas and she's pretty impressed considering.

They fight a lot.

About dishes, her job, his drinking, his friends, money and it doesn't always end with him writhing underneath her, bruised and moaning.

She's sure that she doesn't _love_ him. People who love each other don't fight as much as they do. Her parents have had all of five fights her entire life.

They should probably break up. She should probably move out. He should probably start seeing other people, but she can't do it.

She can't cut him loose. She thinks she's finally got this sorted out in her mind and then he'll walk through the room and smile at her and she can't imagine a future she likes that doesn't have that happening in it.

Futures without him are more stable, calmer, less interesting things; dark without that odd light of his.

She hasn't gotten him a present yet.

She has no idea what to get him, everything she's thought of for the past month and a half he's just purchased without thought.

What could she get him that he wouldn't get himself? Something he would actually like, actually use, actually want.

Mac has been shopping what felt like a million times and she's come up with nothing.

She's lying on the floor of the living room staring up at the slowly revolving ceiling fan waiting for something to just hit her.

She's been waiting a long time by the time Dick is standing over her looking down at her with a wide amused smile.

"What cha doing?"

"Waiting for inspiration."

"Inspiration? You going to paint something?"

"What do you want for Christmas!?" She bursts out shaking a fist at him.

He has the gall to laugh at her but before she can tell him what a jerk he is he's lying down next to her.

"I don't really need anything."

"Do you want anything?"

"Just you."

"At this rate that's all you'll get." She huffs an unhappy sigh and rolls into him, breathing in that calming, ocean scent of his.

He's running his fingers through her hair and she's drawing invisible shapes on his chest when it happens.

"I love you." Dick's words freeze and break her in the near silence of the room, the soft sounds of distant ocean waves, the slow sound of the rotating fan blades.

She pushes herself up to look down at him; his eyes closed tightly, his chest unmoving.

She doesn't say anything she just looks at him, stares at him, he didn't.

Did he.

 _Did she?_

What was she supposed to say back?!

"Oh god, I've ruined everything, right? This was a bad idea." Dick opens his eyes and must see the panic all over her, " Forget I said anything." He gets up and quickly retreats, and she's left sitting on the floor of the living room, stricken.

* * *

Dick does an outstanding job of avoiding her. She doesn't know what to do about him, about Christmas, about her life.

She makes a last ditch effort on his Christmas present. Maybe if it was good enough, maybe if it was perfect, it would say everything for her.

Something catches her eye, a sparkle in the corner of her eye that she's drawn to.

She buys it before she can overthink this as well.

She had over thought everything in her life since grad night, it needed to end, and this was the perfect way to finish that portion of her life.

She gets it wrapped and when she gets home she locks him in the bedroom with her before he can escape.

She holds out the small box and he picks it up confused.

"You locked me in her to show me a box?"

It throws her off that he doesn't make a vulgar double entendre but she closes her eyes, she needs to get through this.

"I'm not good at this, Dick. I've never been good at this stuff. I know we fight a lot and I don't say things when I should, but..." Opening her eyes she sees he hasn't opened the box yet, "open it."

"It's not Christmas."

"It's close enough." She waves him on and he looks confused but opens the box.

A strange look passes across him as he pulls the ring out of the box.

"Mac... Is this..."

"I love you, too, and we fight a lot but there is _no_ _one_ I would rather fight with."

"Are you asking me to marry you?" He asks, voice soft, barely there.

She takes a deep shaking breath, "Ye-"

He kisses her and when he puts his hands on her face she can feel the cold loop of metal against her skin.

She's pretty sure this means yes.

She has no idea if this is a good idea or not, but what she said was true. She would rather be fighting with Dick than agreeing with anyone else.

"Man my present sucks so much in comparison to this." He tells her, pulling her to the bed.

"What is it?" She asks muffled by the sweater he's pulling over her head.

"Just cooking lessons." He tosses the sweater away and pulls a couple pieces of paper out of his bedside drawer along with a foil package.

Taking the papers she looks up at him as he tosses his own clothes aside, "Dick, this place is in Paris."

"Uh huh."

"I love you." It's easier to say this time.

"Yeah, you do, don't you." He twists the ring on his finger before laying his hand, cold ring and all, on her skin, pushing her back into the bed.

"So I take this as a _Yes,_ _I'll_ _marry_ _you?_ " She asks softly as he admires the look of his ring against her naked skin.

"Oh yeah, absolutely."


End file.
